Numbers that explain headlines better than words

Prime Number: The biggest stories, whether business or politics, naturally produce the most numbers. Prime numbers are those that give the sharpest insights

Steve's Jobs

23,430: The estimated net number of jobs Apple Computers has created since it began operations in 1976 in a spare bedroom in Steve Jobs' parents' home in Los Altos, California. Apple had recently, after being accused of shipping jobs to China, claimed that it had created or supported creation of 5,14,000 jobs in the US.

Of these, 3,04,000 jobs were the old economy ones such as engineering, manufacturing and transportation and 2,10,000 jobs in app creation. But, Business Insider analysed that Apple displaced about 4,90,570 jobs at competitors, vendors and government. So, net job creation would be around 23,000.

Source: Business Insider, Apple

Hidden Number: A number not really known, but once found, tells a great story

MONEY UP IN THE AIR

Rs 3,976 crore: That's the credit limit public sector oil companies - Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum - have together extended to Air India for aviation turbine fuel purchases. The combined credit limit allowed to Air India and private airline companies was Rs 5,575 crore as of end April. But instead of paying by the due date, Air India, Kingfisher Airlines and Paramount Airways have defaulted during the past three years.

Odd Number: Some numbers seem strange, even if true. Those are the odd ones

UN-AMERICANS

1,780: That's the number of US expatriates who gave up their American passports last year at various US embassies, and mostly in Switzerland, following the crackdown on tax evasion started four years ago. The US taxes its citizens wherever they reside or earn their income. And, now faced with tough asset disclosure rules under the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, more of the estimated 6 million Americans living overseas are weighing the cost of holding a US passport.

Source: Bloomberg

Wrong Number: Experts, CEOs, netas are often wrong. A number that can serve as a warning

ALL'S NOT WELL

45%: That's how much lower is the latest estimates of gas reserves at Reliance's Krishna-Godavari (KG) Basin D6 block from the initial estimates. Reliance and its partner Niko had initially estimated that the blocks in the KG basin could produce about 10 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas. The company had recently told analysts that the probable reserves may be just 5.5 tcf. Production from the wells have been falling short of target.

23,698: That's the number of works of art Norwegian Expressionist Edvard Munch bequeathed on the city of Oslo at his death in 1944. These - 1,100 paintings, 4,500 drawings and 18,000 prints, 92 sketch books and six sculptures - are now housed in the Munch Museum that opened in 1963. This includes one of the four versions of "The Scream", a painting that made news for the record $ 119.9 million. The one sold was Sotheby's was a pastel version, the only one that was in private hands.